I thought I would write on the behalf of the many digital television viewers in Jacksonville and inform you of the less than stellar QA/QC(quaility assurance/control) that your ABC staff have been demonstrating for some time now. It seems that your staff is unaware when the national HD feed is being sent to them and thus they are unable to "flip" the switch from the regular (SD - standard definition) signal to the HD signal being sent to all affiliates that are capable of receiving said signal. Or your procedures to check the type of signal being broadcast from ABC(national) is not the best of process available?

There are many examples of this lack of HD pass through: Thanksgiving day during the midday programming hours the primetime shows were broadcast in HD( at least all affiliate with HD-capable stations) -- Friday evening primetime (11/28/03) was not broadcast either. Those are just the most recent examples but others are/can be noted.

I'll be the first to admit that my family are not avid viewers of ABC's primetime, but with the ability to watch and enjoy other channels HD offerings we are less likely to stop at ABC-DT while "surfing" for viewing material and thus unlikely to possible become one of those "avid" viewers that your sponsors like to reach.

We also understand HD/Digital Television is a newer technology and bugs need to be worked out, but if I recall correctly your fine station(actually NBC - Olympics, but you are co-owned) was one of the first to offer HD and digital TV but still have many more errors and omissions to your signal than I have seen with you many other competitors in Jacksonville.

It definately was a great game (ussually is) it is a shame the officiating was terrible - they really blew 3 or 4 calls that should have been fumbles or not have been fumbles - oh well - Great game though

I believe it was the first time out Jaguars have been on HDTV and it looked absolutely stunning including the DD5.1 audio. Those instant replay scenes in HDTV sure do show the detail in those questionable fumbles. With HDTV it was so clear when Bucs receiver lost control of the ball. Jack Del Rio made some good guesses on the sideline challenges. Paid off!

I recorded most of it (2:15 as I got home late to start the recording and missed most of the first quarter ) to DVHS tape as I think it was a great demo of NFL Football of our team winning on Nationwide HDTV including some of the great HDTV instant slo mo recalls.

Below is the reply I got back from ABC/NBC: - let me know what you guys think before I respond (to see my original email see my previous post)

Jeff,

Thank you for your comments about WJXX-DT, our ABC digital
outlet in Jacksonville. WTLV-TV (analog NBC), WJXX-TV (analog ABC),
WTLV-DT (digital NBC) and WJXX-DT (digital ABC) are all switched under
automation control from our studios in Jacksonville. We employ a team of
operators and engineers to monitor and oversee our technical operations.
It their job to ensure that our transmissions comply with the FCC
regulations and our internal technical standards. That function includes
switching away from a source that does not meet those standards.

As you so correctly noted, HDTV is a new technology and as such,
the reliability and stability of network transmissions is not as good as
we see in the analog world. ABC is the only network to use the 720
progressive HD standard and more development work has been put into the
more popular 1080 interlaced standard. As we have worked to resolve the
HD issues, we have noticed that the ABC HD transmission is more prone to
failure than the NBC HD feed. Also, remote or live telecasts such as
parades and football present more challenges than in-studio, taped
events. That is not to say that taped event do not have problems from
time to time, but it seems that live events are more susceptible to
failures.

In the event of an HD feed error, our operators will switch to a
SD feed of the program rather that have the HD feed fail on the air.
That is why some programs are not passed through. It is not that they
"forget to flip the switch" or are not paying attention, they are
attempting to provide our viewers with the best picture and sound
available at the time.

We are working with all the parties to resolve the issues with
HD including ABC, NBC, the transmission equipment manufacturers,
encoding equipment manufactures and transmitter equipment manufacturers.
We have already resolved a number of issues and are hopeful that new
software releases to be installed this week will resolve most of the

remaining instability issues in our HD circuit.

Let me assure you that we are committed to providing our viewers
with the best HDTV experience possible and we are working daily toward
that goal.

WRT- ESPN HD, it was on DirecTV and the two authorized audio encodings for HDTV are DD5.1 and DD2.0(DPL). Not only is nothing else legal I don't think any equipment is made to broadcast other forms of encoding although there is a movement now for Dtheater DVHS to have DTS track in addition to DD5.1 but this is not broadcast so it doesn't matter. Last I knew, Jacksonville locals and Comcast were not doing any DD5.1. Therefore under the Dolby system, the default audio is DD2.0(DPL).

Don, I know the ATSC specs call for DD but ESPN broadcasts Circle Surround 5.1 not DD 5.1 -- I really don't understand what CC 5.1 is other than what I have read, but my DD/DTS receiver plays DD2.0 on ESPN and all of our Locals.

Jeff- DD5.1 is the final audio encoding used in the ATSC transmission for ESPN HD. The CS Matrix is what ESPN chooses to use to spread their stereo sources to the six channels for air rather than DPL. Without some form of matrixing all you would get on the DD5.1 is front left and front right discrete, 2 channel No receivers decode using a matrix to all six channels when the meta data tells it to be discrete. DUH! Therefore, they do the mix out to spread the stereo source sound to all six channels prior to encoding to DD5.1. discrete.

Thanks Jeff ,for keeping us informed on WJXX and WTLV and their problems passing through the HD feed.It sounds like they know there is a problem and are trying to fix it.Hopefully this new software will solve the problems.

Watching the ESPN-HD feed on D* last night, I thought the color was really "washed out." That is, there seemed to be a lack of color in the picture as opposed to CBS-HD football games. Not sure if it is a 720p issue or what, but it just hasn't looked as stunning as HD should. The thing is that the score and graphics were vivid while the live action video was just ehh-so,so.

As for tonight's lack of HD football, . . . glad Las Vegas was in HD. That makes up for SD football.

And the best HD football I've seen was on the HD game of the week on NFL channel (although a lot is actually film). But there was no compression artifacts, color was beautiful and the content was pretty good.

Paul- I believe that has a lot to do with the camera operator / CCU operator. Often it is no one's fault but the architects of the stadium!

eg. when a cameraman has to shoot a half sunlighted field with half in the shade, the picture will suffer greatly. I have seen this often on NFL games. Cameras cannot properly expose for both at the same time. Night games are better, overcast games are better and clear sky with high sun are better than the half field of shadow. That's the only thing I can think of to cause a washed out look. 1080i on a capable monitor will have greater texture but not by much. Generally speaking all HD video is restricted to less than 1400 pixels in the horizontal regardless of it being 1080i or 720P. All this does is affect the textures and detail, not the gamma or exposure range.

Jeff- I checked the meta data on my tape of Sunday's game and I stand corrected in the DD5.1 broadcast claim. It was indeed DD2.0 with stadium like matrix, probably that Circle surround matrix but it was DD2.0 not DD5.1 Your other question: I use a Denon 5700.

Does anybody have any experience using an indoor antenna 15 miles or more from the Jacksonville TV Towers? I'm wondering if indoor will work for me, or not to even consider it and plan on getting a rooftop antenna. Antennaweb suggests 'yellow' for my location.

I'm in Fruit Cove, about 20-25 or so miles from the antenna farm. Before I put an antenna in the attic I was able to lock in on all of the stations with an indoor antenna. I mostly stopped using the indoor antenna because I constantly had to keep adjusting the lengths and positions of the elements. Putting an antenna in the attic has elimintated that problem.

Actually, the $39 attic antenna worked much better than the $79 powered indoor one (both from Radio Shack).

I too thought the HD Sunday Night game looked really good. Nice to see the Jaguars perform well in prime time. Interesting... it didn't occur to me that this was the first HD appearance for the Jaguars until Don mentioned it.

Radio Shack catalog #15-2151. Listed as $34.99 on their website. Just for the record, I have it mounted on a mast to stabilize it.

However, I need to warn you that as many of us have found in "rediscovering" antennas after years of cable or satellite, getting them aimed just right is more of an art than a science. Sometimes even moving it an inch or so one way or the other can clear up a multipath problem (or create one!).

Sticking one in an attic and getting good reception can be influenced by a host of factors such as what type of insulation you have, etc. I stuck it up there for kicks just to see what would happen before lumbering around on the roof. Darned if it didn't work just fine, so that's where it sits.

WB has been working as of late for me, just happened to turn it on one night after never being able to get a signal.

Amazing I can watch a show with "only" 20% signal strength out here in Clay County (Brannan Field Road)

all the others working at 75% or better (Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, WJXT).
according to antennaweb.org, compass orientation is 63-66 degrees. and WB is the exact same as CBS (which gets 95% signal) other than it says it needs a green level antenna.

Considering I have a Channel Master 3016 with preamps, I shouldn't have any issues. (maybe a 24 mile straight shot to the towers)

By the way - for anyone in the Jax area. If anyone is interested, one of my business partners has purchased the old Burger King over on Roosevelt by Ortega and will be demolishing the building soon. There are three Soda fountain dispensers in there and I am taking one. They are the Bag in the Box kind and are in pretty good condition, just need a little clean up.

I am not exactly sure what it will take to get them working, but I have started my research and my brother is able to get me the Bag-In-the-Box syrup and I don't think C02 is too expensive, but I don't know what else is involved.

Anyway, if anyone is interested let me know I need to get them out before Christmas.

Also, Jerry, if you're reading, I saw some tone and color bars pop in between many of the commercials on every break. Just a flash for a few frames but you need to see why that is. Also at times you have a loud snap sound and a heavy glitch to the picture when switching between the HD and SD feeds. I have noticed this for about a month now and I don't recall it before.